WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, buoyed by a domestic victory on climate policy, faces his first foreign test on the issue next week at a forum that could boost the chances of reaching a U.N. global warming pact this year.

Obama, who has pledged U.S. leadership in the fight against climate change, chairs a meeting of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters at the G8 summit in Italy on July 9.

Known as the Major Economies Forum, the grouping includes 17 nations that account for roughly 75 percent of the world's emissions, making any agreement from its leaders a potential blueprint for U.N. talks in Copenhagen in December. [...]

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The World's eyes are on the United States to curb carbon emissions because it means that our production capability will be damaged and allow other countries to leap ahead of our economy. Instead of trying to improve their own economies by creating a free-trade and business-friendly economic model, the World's consensus seems to be to take out the leader so they can "automagically" be in a better economic position. This is anti-competitive behavior. To see how it ruins business, look at how Microsoft does things. They operate the same way.

Global environmentalism is not about improving the environment, but about economic dominance. It is a foolhardy thing to specify a limit to global temperature rise. It is an unachievable goal, except by sheer luck. It implies that we have the ability to actually COOL the planet, not just prevent an increase in heat. One might as well try to impose a limit on the number of earthquakes globally.

Perhaps they should respecify that requirement such that there should be no more than a 2C rise due to HUMAN contribution to global warming... Ah... but then how to decouple from natural causes?